The Black Demon - Film Review

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The Black Demon will be in select cinemas on 8 June 2023 and will be available to rent or buy from, 21 June on Apple, Amazon, Google/YouTube, Microsoft, Foxtel, Fetch and Telstra. With a run time of 121 minutes, it's rated 'M' and stars Josh Lucas, Fernanda Urrejola, Venus Ariel and Carlos Solórzano.

Directed by Adrian Grunberg (Rambo: Last Blood), it's about a family that combines a vacation with dad's work trip to Mexico for Nixon Oil, to inspect an oil rig his company owns. However when they get there, the place is not as they remembered. It's abandoned and everyone seems a little wary of strangers. Paul leaves to inspect the rig, but the organised transport will only take him part of the way, so he ends up ferrying himself to the rig on the boat.


The oil rig like the town is just as abandoned, with just two workers on board. They said all the others had left, and that they were battling a curse in the form of a gigantic megalodon shark. The rig is in disrepair, with oil seeping into the waters and the shark will stop at nothing to protect its territory. Paul and his family find themselves stranded and under constant attack, but must somehow find a way to survive and get back to shore alive before it strikes again.

There have been many films of killer sharks, beast vs man and so on, but this one has been amped up by throwing a gigantic megalodon in the mix, and this is no ordinary shark. It's born of wrath and out to get justice for the pollution of its home. It's made very clear, through a touch of 'overkill' from the beginning of the film when the family arrives, that the air is smothered in superstition, suspicion, and abandonment. The rest of the story is pretty formulaic, but it does attempt to save itself from the mundane by throwing in revenge and payback; the piper has to be paid. This is a perfect film for when you have a lazy afternoon and time to spare. Relax, put your feet up; you kinda guess how it's going to end, but then they throw in a reason that is far-fetched, but then again, maybe not. Depends on how superstitious you are. You'll just have to check it out and watch it to the bitter end to find out.





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